InfoMatters

The latest issue contains an interesting conversation between various design thinkers and practitioners that makes reference to the emergence of information architecture as a field (nextd.org/02/10/2/index.html). I love this quote from Peter Jones:

“Information architecture was more of an activity before 2000, now it’s a well-defined field of practice making aggressive inroads into i-schools, (if not yet the d-schools)”.

Of course, from my perspective it is more that the iSchools are making the inroads into the IA profession but interestingly, the notion of an iSchool seems to have wider currency than some might imagine.

I tend to view the various recommendations I get from companies such as Netflix and Amazon as little more than a guide, sometimes interesting, often not, but offering a glimpse into the various weightings they are using to gauge my preferences. It’s not hard to see how unsophisticated are the underlying categories employed by these recommenders when you follow them. You bought one old 70’s rock album then you must want the new Molly Hatchet box set, right? Not exactly sure what this tells us about Amazon but today I was offered a good deal on a snow thrower! You might wonder if something as telling as one’s residential address might be used as a clue to some purchasing preferences - but then again, maybe not, I gather barbequing has become a regular activity now in Ireland and homeowners there have started adding decks to their properties- we only ever used that word to refer to playing cards or ships when I was growing up. Global warming is everwhere so it may start snowing in Texas - good to know Amazon has me covered!